Type: Unnatural links to/from your website
Fix: Remove or set nofollow
If the blogroll, footer, and sidebar link spaces aren’t used for genuine reasons (showing your friends’ and partners’ pages, providing navigational assistance to the user, etc.), Google is likely to notice and respond Spammy sitewide links Spammy sitewide links.
Mary from BorderlessMind had a client whose organic traffic was declining and who had received a penalty for unnatural links.
She found that over 70% of her backlinks used the 99 acres database same anchor—a big-money keyword. Furthermore, most of the links were paid contextual and sidebar links. Big trigger!
This spelled trouble for the client, because one of the consequences of a penalty for unnatural links is actually a drop in traffic for certain search terms—or, in the worst case, all traffic.
Contacting webmasters was the first step Mary and her team took to try to get the links removed, but the response was not 100% positive.Most webmasters responded positively, although there were still about 20% of links for which we received no response, even after repeated follow-ups.
The next step involved disavowing the remaining bad links using Google’s disavowal tool.
Mary and her team saw their client’s penalty lifted two weeks after submitting their disavow file and reconsideration request, although it took some time to regain their previous positions in the SERPs.
14. Spammy widget links
Type: Unnatural links to/from your website
Fix: Edit the link, remove it, or set it to nofollow
Free widgets that you can use on your website often come with linkware terms of service that force you to link back to their service without a nofollow tag.
These links might sometimes be from casino facilities safety manager brandon kirk or adult sites, and you have no way to change the link, set it to nofollow, or ask the widget creators if they have a link that would be better suited for your site.
And by now you know that every time the election is taken away, Google penalizes.
So, try contacting the widget creators to see if you can come to another agreement (e.g., an honest review) and ask them to remove the spammy backlink.
Or set it to nofollow if they insist.
Or better yet, simply stop using the widget. Look for better alternatives or ways to promote your site without it, such as collaborating with users and collecting reviews.
If you’re the widget creator, edit or remove the link from the widget script. (The edit is only to make the link nofollow or brand it without over-optimizing.)
Then reject all existing backlinks.
15. Unnatural links from redirected domains
Type: Unnatural links to/from your website
Fix: Remove or set nofollow
The redirection is not just a form of camouflage against negative SEO attacks.
Backlinks to your old domain that you now redirect to your new one can also trigger a manual action for unnatural links.
One of our clients noticed a drastic drop in traffic to one of their websites. Upon analysis, they discovered that Panda and Penguin had struck, pushing their target keyword from the top three to the third and fourth pages.
He moved to a new website and redirected its traffic to get things moving. But it wasn’t enough. After six months, he ran into trouble again with a manual penalty for unnatural links.
Summary of unnatural links
Acting quickly is the best way to deal with unnatural links.
Sometimes it won’t be easy to get webmasters to remove previously placed links. But if all else fails, you can always decline and forget about it.
All in all, the whole process is much less stressful betting email list than it sounds—so don’t panic if you’re currently dealing with a Google unnatural link penalty.
Take things easy, step by step, and clean up your backlink profile so it shines!